Art of multicolor printing



(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 1. P. G. PRAUENFELDER. ART OF MULTIUOLOR PRINTING.

No. 565,891. Patented Aug. 18, 1896.

WCQJ6J.

mz mums versus 00., woTaumo WASHINGTON. nv c 5 Sheets--Shee:t

(No Model.)

P.G.FRAUENPELDER. ART OF MULTIGOLOR PRINTING.

NO. 565,891. Patented Aug. 18, 1896.

fizz/676607."

A ickk ibq 5 Sheets-Sheet 3.

(No Model)- P. G. FRAUENPELDER. ART OF MULTIGOLOR PRINTING.

Patented Aug. 18, 1896.

KS 6km m: uomus PETERS co. wow-u'm o" WASNKNGTON, n c

(No Model.) 1 P. G. FRAUENFELDER.

ART OF MULTIGOLOR PRINTING. No. 565,891. Patented Aug. '18, 1896.

5 Sheets-Sheet 4.

Qficmsiai'ar. GM M minim m; NGHRI" Farms 20, unmask (No-Mng'iel.) r 5 Sheets-Sheet 5.

" V P.G.FRAUENFELDER.

ART OF MULTIGOLOB. PRINTING.

No. 565,891. Patented Aug. 18, 1896;

' UNITED STATES} PATENT OFFICE. 1

PAUL GEoRGE FRAUENFELDER, OF MErUoHEN, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO THE AMERIGAN LITHOGRAPHIO COMPANY,

OF NEW YORK.

ART OF MULTICOLOR PRINTING.

SPECIFIGATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 565,891, dated August 18, 1896.

Application filed May 29, 1893. $erial No. 475,994. (No specimens.)

T or whom, it may concern.- 7

Be it known that I, PAUL GEORGE FRAUEN- FELDER, a citizen ofthe Republic of Switzerland, residing at Metuchen, in the county of Middlesex and State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Art of Multicolor Printing, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part 1o hereof.

The invention relates to the art of multicolor printing. It has for its object to reduce the expense and time involved in such printing and in I 5 the preparations therefor, and to improve the result.

It consists in the improved methods and product herein described and claimed.

'Heretofore in the art of multicolor printing as practiced industrially the procedure has in general been as follows: A separate and distinct printing-surface has been prepared for each separate color employed, and has been prepared with the full drawing and the full values required for that particular color in the finished print, and the printing from each such printing-surface has been by a direct impression upon the final paper to receive the print, the several colors being thus 0 applied in succession and by as many successive impressions as there are colors to be printed. That is to say, there are as many printing-surfaces as there are colors, and the paper that is receiving the print is passed through the printing-press as many times as there are colors to be printed, and naturally and inevitably each color becomes substantially dry before the next color is or can be applied. It is a necessary incident of this method of procedure that each printing-surface (of Which there are as many as there are colors to be printed) must be prepared by the artist with the same elaborate care and detail as if it were to be the only printing-surface; 5 that is to say, it must be prepared with the full drawingandfull values desired for that particular color in the finished print. It is the elaborate preparation by artists of this p uralityof printing-surfaces that constitutes alarge proportion of the whole time and cost of multicolor printing as practiced heretofore, especially in the more artistic and advanced productions of the art, and especially where several, as, say, eight or ten or a dozen, colors are employed. Again, it is a necessary incident of the method of procedure heretofore employed that the mixing or blending or combining of colors in the finished print (at one and the same point or on one and the same line) for the sake of the modified color effect so obtained is limited to such mixing or blending or combining as can be accomplished by the printing of one color upon the top of another color that has been previously printed, and it is rather an optical blending than an actual physical blending of the separately-printed colors, being rather due to the juxtaposition of those separately-printed colors in fine dots or lines, or to the partial transparence of the overlying layer or layers, this partial transparence permitting underlying layers of a different color to have some effect 011 the eye of the observer. It is also an incident of the method of procedure heretofore employed that a careful examination of the finished print in detail will disclose the presence. thereon of as many different and d-istin'ct drawings as there had been different colors separately printed. An examination of any product of theprior art under a strong magnifying-glass Will illustrate and enforce the statements made above. Modifications of this old method of multicolor printing have been suggested and sometimes used, such as inking different parts of the length of a color-roller with different-colored inks, thus producing stripe effects in the print, employing separable printing-surfaces that are mechanically separated for inking with different-colored inks and are brought together again for printing, and inking portions of the printing-surface with one colorroller and complementary portions with another color-roller, the tWo color-rollers beingcut out so as to be complements the one of the other; and it has been suggested to blend two contiguous colors along their edges by making those colors on the color-rollers and that is shaded off and blended gradually,

overlap slightly for that purpose; but these are not substantial departures from the method first above described.

I have discovered that it is possible to com- 5 bine, that is to say, to physically mix and blend, a plurality of colors, as, say, eight or ten colors, more or less, on one printing-surface, and then to print from said printingsurface by one impression a finished and complete multicolor print, finished and complete so far as the combination of colors printed are concerned, and that this can be done by employing graduated pattern-surfaces, one for each color, the graduations of each pattern surface predetermining the amount of color to be taken up by it, and

one printing-surface graduated for the final print, that is to say, for the aggregate of colors to be printed at one impression, this printing-surface by reason of its graduations taking up from the pattern-surfaces, either directly or through suitable intermediate surfaces, a predetermined amount of color; and

I have discovered that this can be success- 2 5 fully done without the careful and elaborate graduations in full drawing and full values of more than one surface, that is, the final printingsurface itself, and also that the blending of colors is more perfect in method and in result, and gives wider range for artistic effects than is possible in the methods of procedure heretofore employed. Again, I

am enabled by my process to produce accurate and harmonious blends of wide range at a greatly-reduced expenditure of time and skill, and to produce prints that are perfect in their drawing and values, (because they contain and show the impression of the drawing and values of only one surface, to wit,

the final printing-surface,) and that contain and show only one uniform layer or film of I coloring-matter over the face of the drawing,

f but a layer or film of coloring-matter that j changes as desired from dot to dot and line to line into new colors and shades of color,

as desired, one color into another and in any direction on the face of the print.

In carrying out my invention in its preferred form I proceed as follows: I prepare by hand or by any of the ordinary processes (such as by transferring a half-tonenegati ve) on a printing surface (such as lithograph stone, zinc, wood, steel, copper, celluloid,

5 5 gelatin, &c.) the full drawing and full color values desired in the print that is to be produced. Reverse offset impressions of the drawing upon this printing-surface are then made on surfaces which, whether used fiat or curved around cyclinders or rollers, come later on to form the pattern-surfaces. These pattern-surfaces, or any of them, can be made out of any of the substances above named or of substances suitable for a printing or a pattern surface. I prefer, however, to employ zinc both for the pattern-surfaces and for the printing surface. As many pattern-surfaces are prepared with reverse offset impressions as in the judgment of the artist may seem best. Thus if the artist thinks twelve colors necessary to produce the print, twelve reverse offset impressions are made upon as many different pattern surfaces or plates. On each of these pattern surfaces or plates drawings (that need be only rough drawings) are made by hand, by photography, or .by any of the graphic methods, wherever that color or any of the compound colors of which it is to be. an element is desired in the print, the reverse offset impressions being used as a guide only in the placing of the drawings and being then obliterated. The offsets are really needed only when the drawing on the pattern-surfaces is done by hand. These pattern-surfaces are then prepared and made ready for printing by any of the ordinary methods, as by etching, as if they were to be printed from. portions that are to bear ink may be raised in relief, but I prefer to make them plano; graphic, that is, so that they are neither raised in relief nor sunk in intaglio, but are set approximately on the same plane as those portions of the pattern-surface that are not to bear ink. The ink-bearing portion of one or more, but preferably of all, of the patternsurfaces is so prepared as to be capable of taking up the ink from the ink-rollers onto its surface in graduated quantities, whereby the printing-surface (prepared in full values) is enabled, when brought into contact with the pattern-surfaces, to take up the inks therefrom in quantities graduated to correspond to the final colors and blends of colors and values of colors desired. Their respective colors are then applied to the patternsurfaces by color-rollers or in any suitable way, and they are pressed ink-side down against the final printing-surface'in proper succession, the said printing-surface having been first cleaned and prepared for the inking, care being taken to have each patternsurface register with the printing-surface when pressed upon the latter. The printingsurface now carries all the colors located, blended, and graduated as they are desired to appear in the print. The printing is now done from the printing-surface by one impression on paper or whatever other substance it is desired should receive the final print.

In carrying out my new process the ultimate printing-surface, called herein the printin g-surface, is the only one of the plurality of surfaces prepared that requires to be prepared with the full drawing and full values in graduation desired in the print, and it requires to be prepared with the full drawing and full values in graduation of the aggregate of all the colors the combined effect of which it is desired to produce in the print. The separate pattern-surfaces prepared need be prepared only with approximate graduations, that is to say, with approximately the drawing and values required for the color con-v If desired, the

ICC

cerned. It is sufficient if this preparation of the separate pattern-surfaces is only approximate, and, as it were, in the rough, and this is by reason of the fact that on the final 5 printing-surface the full and accurate drawing and the full and accurate values in graduation for the aggregate of all the colors exist. When the colors are applied to the patternsurfaces that are thus roughly and rapidly prepared, as indicated, there is by reason of this preparation of the pattern-surfaces a preliminary selection and graduation of the coloring-matter taken up from the color-rollers, and when in turn that pattern-surface is pressed against the face of the printing-surface, accurately registering with the same, there is a second and now accurate selection and graduation of the coloring-matter taken up from the pattern-surface. The ink-bear- 0 ing portions of two or more of the patternsurfaces are preferably so constructed and arranged as to make an overlap to form a blend in one or more portions of their impressions on the printing-surface.

5 In order to prevent the first color deposited upon the printing-surface from being picked off by the pattern-surfaces applied for the second and subsequent colors, the said pattern-surfaces are in the well-known way kept o damp in those parts which do not carry any ink, or if this damping is not desired the pattern-surfaces can be etched or cut in relief in any ordinary well-known way, as in making the ordinary printing-plate, so that the raised parts only will touch the printing-surface, those being at the same time the parts that carry the ink. The printing-surface will also in the well-known way be dampened after each printing operation and before receivo ing aseries of fresh impressions from the pattern-surfaces, where the printing-surface is a planographic surface, and the pattern-surfaces will be dampened in the usual way after each transference of color to the printing- 5 surface, where they are planographic surfaces. It will also be understood that the pattern-surfaces (two or more or all of them) may be applied to and yield up their coloringmatter in proper succession to a paper or other suitable intermediary or transferring .surface, and the aggregate of all the colors so obtained upon such surface be afterward transferred at one impression to the printingsurface and thereafter printed at one impres- 5 sion from said printing-surface. It will also be understood that my new process may be used and the new print that is the result of it may be made, and prior thereto or subsequently thereto other printing may be done on the 0 same paper or print-receiving surface. This prior or subsequent printing on the same print-receiving surface would not, of course, negative the fact of the use of my new process or the production of my new product in so far 5 as the colors applied by it and in it are concerned. I prefer in practice, for instance, to

apply aportion of all the colors desired in.

from what is old.

the finished print according to my new process and thereby to produce, as to such colors, my new product, and subsequently to apply by one or more impressions the balance of the colors, also again according to my new process, and so producing again as to such balance of colors my new product, printing the second and subsequent prints directly over and upon the first print and registering accurately therewith.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the printing-surface and pattern-surfaces for a complete print. The print selected has eight colors.

Figure 1 represents the printing-surface before the application thereto of the pattern surfaces. The remaining figures represent the several pattern-surfaces to be applied to the printing-surface and are numbered in the order of their successive application to the printing-surface to prepare the printing-surface for the impression. Fig. 2 represents the pattern-surface for the purple; Fig. 3, the pattern-surface for the Vermilion; Fig. 4, for brown; Fig. 5, for neutral gray; Fig. 6, for buff; Fig. 7, for light green; Fig. 8, for pink; Fig. 9, for yellow.

In examining the various drawings it must be borne in mind that in all the pattern-surfaces, Figs. 2 to 9, inclusive, the drawings are laterally reversed in relation to that on the impression or printing surface, Fig. 1. It will be noted that but little drawing is required on the pattern-surfaces. For instance, in the pattern-surface for the light green, Fig. 7, the background is but roughly and approximately drawn or graduated, instead of being carefully drawn, as heretofore required, and its selection of color from its plain color-roller is but approximately graduated, but when this pattern-surface is applied to the printing-surface,Fig. 1, that printing-surface takes up from it and selects the color in the accurate proportion and graduation required for the final impression. The other pattern-surfaces that contribute to this background, buff, Fig. 6, and yellow, Fig. 9, also contain but little drawing, and yet the aggregate of these colors upon the printing-surface produces an accurate and handsome print. So, also, it will be noted that the main color, purple, Fig. 2, of the parasol is obtained with but rough drawing and roughly-approxim ated values on the pattern-surface,but nevertheless this color is accurately selected and taken up by the printing-surface in the desired proportion for the final impression. So, also, of the face, the dress, and all other parts of the print. The double selective action makes possible the most delicate shading and the most desirable blending of the colors and permits the blend ing before printing and the printing all at one impression and according to one single unitary drawing.

The new and improved product produced by my new process is clearly distinguishable It combines the perfection ICO IIO

of drawing of a print that is printed in one color at one impression from one printingsurface with the variety of coloring and of shading and graduation of coloring of a print that is printed in many colors by many successive impressions from as'many different printing surfaces; and as an accompaniment of the combination there is in addition in my improved print a perfection of mixing and blending and shading and intershading of tints and colors, according to the graduations of the pattern-surfaces and of the printing-surface and obtained by their double and successive selective action and as described, that has not been attainable heretofore.

I am aware that different colors have been printed at and by one impression of a single printing-surface and that various expedients have been suggested for inking the printingsurface with the different colors, and hence I do not broadly claim the printing of different colors at one impression, nor do I broadly claim the inking of a single printing-surface with different colored inks. I am aware also that it has even been suggested to blend two colors for such a printin g-surface, and I do not broadly claim the mixing or blending of colors for such a printing-surface.

I believe myself to be the first to successfully produce a multicolor print requiring and showing agraduation of color or shading effects at and by one impression of a single printing-surface, and the first to attain such graduations of color by the double and successive selective action of separate graduated pattern-surfaces taking up color separately from a color roller or rollers and a graduated printing-surface taking up color successively from said pattern-surfaces.

\Vhat I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The improvement in the art of multicolor printing which consists'in constructing a series of properly-prepared graduated pattern-surfaces, each of which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of color, constructing a printing-surface with graduations suitable for the final print which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of each color, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printing-surface successively from the pattern-surfaces, and finally printing from the printing-surface, substantially as shown and described.

2. As an improvement in the art of multicolor printing the process which consists in constructing a series of properly-prepared planographic pattern-surfaces, each of which, by means of its preparation, selects a predetermined amount of color, constructing a printing-surface with graduations suitable for the final print which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of each color, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printingsurface successively from the pattern surfaces, and finally printing from the printing-surface, substantially as shown and described.

3. As an improvement in the art of multi' color printing the process which consists in constructing a series of properly-prepared zinc pattern-surfaces,each of which, by means of its preparation, selects a predetermined amount of color, constructing a printing-surface with graduations suitable for the final print, which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of each color, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printing-surface successively from the pattern surfaces, and finally printing from the printing surface substantially as shown and described.

4. As an improvement in. the art of multicolor printing the process which consists in constructing a series of properly-prepared zinc pattern-surfaces, each of which, by means of its preparation, selects a predetermined amount of color, constructing a zinc printingsurface with graduations suitable for the final print which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of each color, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printing-surface successively from the pattern surfaces, and finally printing from the printing-surface, substantially as shown and described.

5. As an improvement in the art of multicolor printing the process which consists in constructing a series of graduated patternsurfaces, each graduated approximately according to the drawing and the values required for its color in the final print, and each of which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of color, c011- structing a printing-surface withgraduations in full drawing and full values suitable in the final print for the aggregate of colors to be printed, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printing-surface successively from the pattern-surfaces, and finally printing from the printing-surface, substantially as shown and described.

6. The improvement in the art of multicolor printing which consists in constructing a series of properly-prepared graduated pattern-surfaces, each of which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of color, two at least of which are so constructed and arranged as to make an overlap to form a blend in one or more portions of their impressions on the printing-surface, constructing a printing-surface with graduations suitable for the final print which, by means of its graduations, selects a predetermined amount of each color, inking the pattern-surfaces each with its proper color, inking the printing-surface successively from the pattern-surfaces, and finally printing from the printing-surface, substantially as shown and described.

7 7. An improved multicolor print made substantiallyas described at one impression from a printingsurface constructed with graduations suitable for the final print, and inked successively from a series of separate color pattern-surfaces each having properly-prepared graduations, the separate colors being first selected by the graduations of the pattern surfaces and subsequently selected therefrom by the graduations of the printingsurface and mixing and blending together on said printing-surface in the quantities and with the arrangement predetermined by this double selective action, the resulting mixed and blended colors being printed and existing in the finished multicolor print substantially as one layer of coloring-matter arranged according to the unitary drawing of one printing-surface.

8. An improved multicolor print made sub stantially as described at two or more impressions, each impression being made from a printing-surface constructed with graduaaccording to the unitary drawing of one printing-surface.

PAUL GEORGE FRAUENFELDER.

Witnesses:

, HENRY D. WILLIAMS,

JosEPH P. KNAPP. 

